Mary therefore, when she came where Jesus was, seeing him, fell at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.
Martha met Jesus first and spoke at once; Mary came later, said less, and fell at His feet. Her words repeat Martha's word for word — so what makes the same sentence different on different lips?
What separates Mary is not what she says but the posture she says it from.
Mary was not above the pressure of death any more than others. She repeats what Martha said; but she was of a different spirit in repeating it. But if she saw in Him as yet only power to preserve, if she had to learn that He is the resurrection and the life, at least she fell at His feet, as Martha did not. And the Lord, if He says nothing, will soon answer in deed and in truth.
The verse puts three things in order: she came, she saw Him, and then she fell and spoke.
When Martha went and met the Lord, she spoke at once. But the account states two things about Mary before she expressed the sorrow of her heart. She had come into His presence, she had seen Him, and she had fallen at His feet — and only then did her lips utter her pent-up feeling. In fact, it would seem that Mary fell at His feet as a result of having gazed upon His face. She knew more of the Lord than her sister. With her quick and responsive affection, she would read in His face what Martha could not have perceived.
The onlookers assumed Mary was heading for the tomb to cry there. She was going somewhere else. Where a mourner weeps decides whether the grief finds any comfort.
The Jews, mistaking her action, say, "She goes to the grave to weep there." She was doing what was far better, what faith alone can do. She was going to the feet of Jesus to weep there. To weep at the grave of loved ones even the world can do, but it brings no comfort: tears will not bring back our dead. To weep at the feet of Jesus is to find the comfort of His love. We weep at the feet of One who, in His own time, can raise our dead, and in the meantime can comfort our hearts... In other days she had sat at His feet as a learner. So, in her days of sorrow, she is able to be at His feet as a mourner. And in a little while she will be found at His feet as a worshipper.
She trusted Him to stop a sickness. Once death had come, she could see no way forward.
Mary, too, was under the weight of death. In that respect she did not go beyond Martha. But she was sure of the goodness of Jesus, as Martha also had been, and she said, "If You had been here, my brother would not have died." Death was between her hope and Jesus, since Jesus had not been between Lazarus and death. For her, death had shut the door to all hope. Lazarus was no longer in the land of the living, and there was no longer anyone to be healed.
The same sentence could sound like a complaint. One writer traces her tone to her sense of who He is:
"He could not have died if You had been here, Lord." I do not think there was complaint in it. I think it was a simple statement of a soul that was under the sense of the glory of His Person in a very beautiful way.
Another writer weighs the same question and lands on her trust in Him:
In her case there might have been perplexity, but there was certainly neither complaint nor implied reproach. It was her heart's confession that if He had been in Bethany her brother would not have died. Great as her grief was, she could trust Him completely, and she did.
Martha kept talking. Mary stops — and that stopping is itself an act of trust.
She falls at His feet with a stronger emotion than Martha has shown, but only to repeat her sister's words... There, unlike Martha, she stops and says no more. She sees no way, and cannot speak as if she did. Let the lips she has listened to so often speak for Him and her.
- Feet, learned. She sat at those feet as a learner first. That is why she can kneel there as a mourner, and worship there later.
- Feet, not grave. Anyone can weep at a tomb and get nothing back; weeping at His feet reaches the One who comforts now and raises later.
- Feet, and few words. She says what Martha said, word for word, then stops — leaving the speaking to Him.
- Feet, and a short faith. Her hope stretched only to healing. With death in the way she saw no road left, and had yet to learn He is the resurrection and the life.
- Feet, and His answer. He gives her no word here at all. His answer comes in deed and in truth.
Jesus therefore, when he saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, was deeply moved in spirit, and was troubled,
Mary is in tears, and the crowd around her is weeping too. Jesus answers not with power but with a groan — why does He groan at a grave He is about to empty?
He is near the grave, but what moves Him first is the crying of the people in front of Him.
The sight of human tears drew out a groan from the loving, sympathising heart of the Son of God. Let all mourners remember this. Jesus did not rebuke Mary for weeping. He did not make light of her sorrow. He did not tell her she ought not to feel, that she ought to be above anything of that sort. No, that would not be like Him. Some heartless people may talk that way, but He knew better. Though He was the Son of God, He was a real man. So He felt as a man ought to feel. He knew what a man must feel while walking through the dark valley of tears.
Where the ESV says "deeply moved in his spirit," older translations read "He groaned in the spirit." The word behind it is strong. One commentator shows where else it turns up.
The word translated "deeply moved" occurs elsewhere for a "strict" or stern "charge," as in Matthew 9:30 and Mark 1:43. It also appears for angry speech, as in Mark 14:5. Here it is the inward feeling rather than the expression... It means the strong, and perhaps indignant, affection the Lord felt at the power of death. That power held not only the Jews but Mary, and the enemy still wielded it... His indignant sense of Satan's power through sin did not lessen His deep compassion in the least.
The account never says anyone heard it.
He groaned in the spirit. That groaning is not said to have been audible. We do not read that the Jews noticed it. They made no remark on it. But we know it, and learn from it how really, how deeply, He can feel for the sorrows of His sinful creatures.
He is about to raise Lazarus, so the groan is not just grief over a loss He will undo. What, then, was pressing on Him?
He was so "deeply moved," or "groaning," because He had gone down in spirit under the heavy load of sorrow. That load lay on the heart of Mary and on the hearts of those around her. Through His sympathy He entered their grief and made it His own. He took it up on His own shoulders, so to speak. He knew perfectly what caused it, and He weighed its real character before God. So the burden pressed on Him until it forced out this groan. And remember that the heart of this burden was death. At that moment death lay on the mourners' hearts and over the whole scene. But death is the judgment of God on man. So we may say that in this scene the Lord anticipated His death on the cross. Here He took up and bore this judgment in compassion and sympathy; on the cross He bore it for the glory of God, making atonement for sin.
Older translations end the verse with "He troubled Himself." That is something He did, not something that happened to Him.
But we may note that in our Lord's case, deep as His grief was, it was His servant. "He troubled Himself." It did not gain the mastery, as our affections tend to do with us. Every feeling in Christ was perfect in kind, in measure, and in timing. His groaning, His trouble, His weeping — what were they not in God's sight!
His grief also had a Godward side.
He was holy, innocent, undefiled, and death had no claim on Him. Yet He felt in His spirit the dreadful dishonour done to God, and the awful distance and desolation of men. As perfect Man, He not only felt for God. Being God in His own glory, He also felt for man as only God could in the presence of human misery.
Why record the groan and the tears at all, when Lazarus was about to walk out alive?
Some might possibly think that such expressions of sorrow on the part of our Lord were needless, seeing He was about to raise Lazarus. But think what we should have missed if there were no record of His groaning and shedding tears. Now we may see how He knows "our frame."
- Seen — the groan starts with what He sees: Mary and the crowd weeping. He never tells a mourner to stop feeling.
- Felt — the word is strong, even indignant: His response to death's power in the enemy's hand. The feeling was inward; no one is said to have heard it.
- Carried — through sympathy He took their sorrow on His own shoulders. The heart of that burden was death, God's judgment on man. He bore it here in compassion; on the cross He bore it for God's glory.
- Controlled — "He troubled Himself." The grief was real, but it served Him. Every feeling in Him came in perfect measure, at the right moment.
- Recorded — the account could have left out the tears, since Lazarus was about to rise. We have them so we may see how He knows "our frame."
and said, Where have ye put him? They say to him, Lord, come and see.
The question is simple, but it comes from someone who already knew Lazarus was dead. So why did the One who could raise a man from the tomb need to ask where the tomb was?
Some read this line as proof that Jesus had limited knowledge and needed directions like anyone else. Other writers point to the chapter itself. He knew of the death from a distance and timed His return around it.
He was aware of His friend Lazarus' death while still in the place where He stayed two days, to allow it to happen in His absence. He timed His return to suit the circumstances. At the beginning of this whole course of events He declared, "This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it" — and that declaration makes it clear how fully He knew the whole sad episode and its happy outcome in advance. That He depended on ordinary sources of information for this detail — really, what can be said of this?
There is a second reason for asking out loud. The question made the crowd, not Jesus, name the spot.
"Where have you laid him?" If the Lord had not asked this question, would not unbelievers have said that He was only acting a part, or that there was collusion?
The verse before says He was deeply moved in His spirit and greatly troubled. Commentators find in that word something stronger than sadness — a reaction against the enemy holding these people in his grip.
It means the strong, and it may be indignant, affection the Lord felt at the power of death over Mary, and not only over the Jews. The enemy still wielded that power... His indignant sense of Satan's power through sin did not interfere in the least with His deep compassion.
He saw more than a dead man. He saw living hearts crushed by death.
He saw the power of death resting on those human hearts. It was a very deep thing. He knew He was just going to raise him from the dead. But He sees the state they are in. They do not know what is coming... He had the power to remove it all, but the weight and dark shadow of death was resting on human souls, on those He loved, and He felt it.
Here He does not tell the mourners to stop crying. He asks a question, and it puts Him where they are standing.
His tender question to the broken-hearted sister, "Where have you laid him?" shows how gently the Lord lightened the burden of the sorrowing heart. He made her see that His heart was just where hers was — at the tomb of Lazarus... He told the widow of Nain not to weep. He told Jairus that his daughter was not dead but sleeping. Each time He meant to wipe away the tears. But in Bethany the Lord weeps with His saints. The grandest display of the power of the Lord to raise the dead came together with the greatest witness to His deep sympathy with the bereaved.
Their answer is an invitation with nothing in it but loss. The same words appear earlier in John's Gospel. Jesus used them, and so did Philip when he called Nathanael.
This expression appears twice in chapter 1. First the Lord uses it, inviting others into His circumstances. Then Philip uses it, inviting Nathanael to see the Lord. But all that man has to show the Lord is a grave! How could He help thinking of His own coming death and burial for the sake of mankind in its sinful, ruined state?
Their answer also shows the limit of human sympathy.
The power of human sympathy only ties us down to the grief it wants to ease. It lays the body in the grave and puts a stone over the mouth. The Lord does indeed grieve and trouble Himself, but He seeks out the ruin to remedy it.
Their reply also shows how we bring our own sorrows to God.
"Where have you laid him?" That is all you can do. The man that I love I can do more for... Notice the tendency, which Jesus does meet. We bring God down to the service of our sorrow. We do not look to the power of God to remedy our sorrow for His glory. This is our unbelief. It is, "Come and see Lazarus dead," not, "You, O Lord, are the resurrection and the life."
- Asked, not needed. He had known of the death from far away and had timed His arrival; the question came from interest, not ignorance.
- Asked, so witnesses answer. By making the crowd name the tomb, He left no room for the charge that the miracle was staged.
- Asked from a troubled heart. Behind the words lies strong feeling against death's grip on those He loved. He felt it even while knowing He was about to break it.
- Answered with a grave. "Come and see" is an invitation elsewhere in John to see Christ; here all that man can show Him is a burial place.
- Answered beyond the grave. Sympathy alone only leads to the tomb and seals it. He goes to the ruin to remedy it, for the glory of God.
Jesus wept.
At the grave of Lazarus, two sisters and a crowd of mourners stand in tears, and Jesus is there among them. Two words record what He did, and they raise the question every grieving person asks: does God feel what I feel?
The chapter divisions and verse numbers in our Bibles were added by people, not by the writers. One commentator notes this, then draws attention to what happened here.
Everyone knows that the verses of our Bible are a human arrangement. Yet who can doubt that the Spirit of God guided the one who made it, in putting these two words into a verse of their own! They should stand alone, because they open a window into the very depths of the Lord's heart. They have comforted mourners in every age. They will keep comforting His people until God Himself wipes away every tear from their eyes.
Mary was weeping. What He did next shows how He treats sorrow in His own people.
The sight of human tears drew a groan from the loving, sympathising heart of the Son of God. Let all mourners remember this. Jesus did not rebuke Mary for weeping. He did not make light of her sorrow. He did not tell her she ought not to feel, that she ought to be above anything of that sort. No — that would not be like Him. Some heartless people may talk that way, but He knew better. He was the Son of God, but He was also a real man. So He felt as a man ought to feel. He knew what a person feels when passing through the dark valley of tears.
Jesus was about to raise Lazarus. So the tears had another cause.
The sisters had reason to weep for the loss of their brother. But the Lord had no need to weep for a man He was about to raise. It was not for the dead He wept, but for the living — not for the loss of Lazarus, but for the sorrow of Mary and Martha. In a little while, love will raise Lazarus, but first love will weep with Martha and Mary. He broke His heart to bind up our hearts, and shed His tears to dry our tears.
Others widen the circle further, past the two sisters to everyone death has ever touched.
These tears of the Saviour were deep sympathy for the whole human race. Death crushed it with a weight it could not lift. He felt for these tested souls too.
Watching Him cry, the crowd said He must have loved Lazarus. Commentators differ on whether they were right. Some say His plan to raise Lazarus rules that out. Others place it beside His sympathy for the sisters.
They are truly tears of sympathy with the grieving sisters in their great sorrow. There is truth in what the Jews said: "See how He loved him!" What deep comfort the tears of Jesus have brought to His own people in times of loss.
He knew He was about to raise Lazarus. He could have done it without a tear. He did not.
He wept as He was reaching the grave of Lazarus, though He knew He carried life for the dead. He who had just said, "I am the resurrection and the life," wept. Divine power left His human feelings free to run their full course.
The original word for weeping here is precise. It marks out one kind of tears from another.
The word here means shedding silent tears. It is not the word for loud wailing that Luke 19:41 uses. But those silent tears of Jesus have moved the hearts of grieving believers for two thousand years.
That is why sorrow is not wasted on a believer.
"God comforts the downcast." If we were never downcast, we would never know that precious care of His. A stoic does not need the comfort of God. It is worth having a broken heart to have it bound up by our most merciful High Priest.
- Tears, first. Before power raised Lazarus, love wept with the sisters — He shed His tears to dry theirs.
- Tears, real. He was a real man, and He felt as a man ought to feel; He never told Mary she should be above weeping.
- Tears, wide. They reached past one grave to a whole race crushed under a weight it could not lift.
- Tears, free. Divine power did not silence human sympathy; the One who said "I am the resurrection and the life" still wept.
- Tears, lasting. Silent tears have comforted mourners for two thousand years. A broken heart is worth having, if He is the one who binds it up.
The Jews therefore said, Behold how he loved him!
The crowd standing at the grave watches Jesus in tears and reaches a verdict about His heart. Their words are warm, and in one sense they are right. Yet commentators differ over what those tears were for.
The people had evidence for what they said. Both the sisters and John knew of that love. The crowd was not guessing.
Some who saw the tears of Jesus said, "See how He loved him" (John 11:36). This was surely true, as the sisters knew (John 11:3) and as John knew (John 11:5). The tears expressed the love of Jesus for Lazarus. They also showed that He was not unfeeling toward the cruel wounds death had made in the hearts of the sisters of Bethany.
Lazarus was about to walk out of the tomb. So the weeping must have had another object.
The Jews, standing around the grave, misread the tears. They say, "See how He loved him!" The Lord did love Lazarus, but the tears were not the expression of His love for Lazarus. The sisters may weep for the loss of their brother. But there was no need for the Lord to weep for one He was about to raise. He did not weep for the dead but for the living — not for the loss of Lazarus, but for the sorrow of Mary and Martha. In a little while love will raise Lazarus, but first love will weep with Martha and Mary. He broke His heart to bind up our hearts, and shed His tears to dry our tears.
One writer goes further. He reads the tears as sympathy for everyone death has crushed, and denies they came from affection for Lazarus.
These tears of the Saviour were deep sympathy for the human race, crushed under the weight of death and unable to lift itself out. They were sympathy for these tested souls too. The Jews thought the tears of Jesus came from His affection for Lazarus: "See how He loved him!" they say. That was very natural, but what He was about to do forbids us to hold such a thought.
Who you believe the weeper to be changes what the tears mean. A bystander sees a grieving friend. Faith sees the mighty God about to raise the dead.
Even the Jews could not help saying, "See how He loved him!" What would they have thought if they had known He was just about to raise the dead man? ... Only faith in the glory of His Person reads the depth of His love rightly, and values it in its measure. "Jesus wept." These words mean one thing to someone who sees only a man. They mean far more to someone who knows Him as the mighty God, the only-begotten Son! Even a believer cannot fail to own His love here. But how much greater that love becomes when we see His divine dignity, and know that He was about to act in the power of divine life above death!
Their admiration did not stop there. Having praised the love, the crowd went on to ask why it had not acted sooner.
His tears told the Jews how Jesus loved Lazarus. Like the sisters, they could not understand why He had not kept him from dying. They reasoned in a human, worldly way. Love that showed such sympathy, they thought, might have used its power at the start to heal the sick man. But perfect wisdom and unfathomable love had arranged the circumstances. The Father was directing and the Son was obeying. Everything was working together for good — that is, for the glory of God.
The onlookers spoke of this love as something in the past. One writer points out that the New Testament refuses to leave it there.
John 11:36, "See how He loved him." While we can speak of His love in the past tense, how good to know it is a love that continues. John, in Revelation 1:5, spoke of the love of Christ as a reality that never stops. About our sins he used the past tense: "has freed us from our sins." But about the love that led Him to do that cleansing work once for all, he wrote, "To Him who loves us." Praise His Name, He loves and will go on loving His own.
- Seen — The crowd was right as far as it went. The tears showed love, and Jesus was not unfeeling toward hearts wounded by death.
- Misread — Commentators differ on the source of the tears. Some say they expressed love for Lazarus. Others say He had no reason to weep for a man He was about to raise. He wept for the living, and for a race crushed under death.
- Measured — Only faith in who He is can measure that love. The words "Jesus wept" mean one thing to someone who sees a man. They mean far more to someone who sees the only-begotten Son.
- Questioned — Admiration slid into complaint. Why had He not kept him from dying? That was human reasoning. All the while the Father was directing and the Son obeying, for the glory of God.
- Continuing — Their verb was past tense; Scripture keeps it present. He loves and goes on loving His own.
And some of them said, Could not this [man], who has opened the eyes of the blind [man], have caused that this [man] also should not have died?
Bethany's mourners watched Jesus weep. Then came a question that sounds fair but is really unbelief: if He could open a blind man's eyes, why let a friend die?
Their question is smaller than it looks. Notice what they never ask Him to do.
The people, talking from their point of view, say, "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?" It is all a mystery to them. They do not say, "Could he not have raised this man?" but, "Could he not have kept this man from dying?"
If He had simply healed Lazarus, the proof would have been weaker.
But there Lazarus was dead, and the question was the power of the Son of God who raises the dead. Healing would have been no such proof of His divine sonship.
Their logic is not wrong about what Jesus can do. It is incomplete, because it weighs only one thing about Him.
We judge that God might have spared us many a trial, and we settle it as a clear, unquestioned conclusion, that He had the power. The friends of the family at Bethany said the same. But their reasoning fell short, because it took in only part of the truth: they thought only of the power of Christ.
Their question sets His power against His love.
The onlooker — himself blind — might say, "He has the power, where is His affection?" That is how someone who does not know Him reasons. But in this hour of trial are not His own also very low in their estimate of Him? His love, His power, where were they? All this is unbelief, and He rebukes it as such.
The crowd sets the blind man's healing against Lazarus's death, as if the two do not fit together. Each had its own purpose.
Here the poor human heart lets itself out in its ignorant reasonings. How little did these sceptics understand either the person or the path of the Son of God! How could they appreciate the motives that moved Him either in what He did, or in what He did not do? He opened the eyes of the blind, so that "the works of God might be displayed in him." And He did not prevent the death of Lazarus, so that God might be glorified by it.
This is the second time Jesus groans in this scene. Each groan had its own cause.
This second groan is deeply affecting. He groaned, at first, in sympathy with the mourners around Him. He groaned again over the hardness and dark unbelief of the human heart, and of the heart of Israel in particular. But note this: He does not try to explain why He did not stop His friend from dying, even though He had opened the eyes of the blind.
They knew what He could do. They did not know why He waited.
These Jews knew that the Lord had the power to do wonderful works. But they did not know the wisdom and the love that made Him wait until Lazarus was dead before He came to the grieving sisters. Not only the ravages of death, but the unbelief and ignorance of men, brings a groan from the blessed Son of God.
Sisters and mourners all say the same thing in different words. Each of them thinks of Jesus as someone who could have come earlier.
All were under the weight of death. Lazarus was in the grave, and death was already doing its corrupting work. Martha and Mary both say, "If you had been here, my brother would not have died." The Jews say, "Could not this man … have kept this man from dying?" None realised that the One who is the resurrection and the life was among them.
Suppose Jesus had kept Lazarus from dying. The sisters would have escaped the grief, and lost far more.
If that had happened, how much those sisters would have missed! What impressions of the glory of Christ they would have lost! They would not have known the preciousness of His tears of compassion. They would have missed the might and authority of that "loud voice," the knowledge of Himself as "the resurrection and the life," and the sight of the glory of God.
- Partial — The crowd reasoned only on Christ's power. They left out His love and His wisdom, so their conclusion was wrong.
- Prevention — They asked for a death avoided, not a dead man raised; healing would never have shown Him to be the Son of God.
- Purpose — He opened blind eyes to display the works of God. He let Lazarus die so that God would be glorified.
- Groan — Their question drew a second groan from Him, and He gave no explanation for the death He had not prevented.
- Person — Sisters and mourners alike thought He should have come sooner. None saw that the resurrection and the life stood among them.
Jesus therefore, again deeply moved in himself, comes to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay upon it.
Jesus walks to the tomb of Lazarus, and John records what was happening inside Him. Why does He groan a second time when He already knows Lazarus will live, and why does John describe the cave and its stone?
The word John uses is stronger than sadness. Its other uses in the Gospels show why.
The word translated "deeply moved" appears elsewhere for a "strict" or stern "charge," as in Matthew 9:30 and Mark 1:43. It also appears for an angry speech, as in Mark 14:5. Here it points to the inward feeling rather than its outward expression... It means the strong, and perhaps indignant, feeling the Lord had at the power of death. That power held not only the Jews but Mary, and the enemy still wielded it. The phrase that follows brings this out even more, and so does verse 38. His tender sympathy shows instead in His weeping (verse 35)... His indignant sense of Satan's power through sin did not weaken His deep compassion in the least.
This second groan comes as the crowd reacts to His delay.
These Jews knew that the Lord had power to do wonderful works. But they did not know the wisdom and the love that made Him wait. He waited until Lazarus was dead before He came to the grieving sisters. It is not only the ravages of death that bring a groan from the blessed Son of God. The unbelief and ignorance of men do the same.
He gives them no answer. One writer draws a lesson from that silence for anyone who argues with an unbeliever.
There is not the slightest use in arguing with unconverted people. It only deceives them by making them think they can argue. It is always the best way to deal seriously with them about their own moral condition before God. We do not find our Lord taking any notice of the unbelieving reasoning of those around Him. He only groans again and goes on His way.
The cave and the stone are part of the picture. They show how people deal with their dead.
The Lord groaned deeply at the grave of Lazarus, but He had power to carry it in spirit to God, and was strengthened. He came to the place of death and found all sealed up, and a stone laid upon it; and He groaned in spirit. Men put away their dead as something repulsive — to get rid of them quickly.
The same writer sees in that stone the power that shuts God's glory out of sight.
Jesus again felt for Himself the power that shut God's glory out from man. He comes to the cave with a stone laid on it, which served as a tomb... Martha could not rise above the humbling effects of death, and she would have kept them out of sight from others. But Jesus would not hide what was due to God in grace to man. How soon the word of the Lord is forgotten when the sad facts of human ruin stand in front of us! Faith gives the word heed, and reaps the blessing in due time.
He does not stand outside the grief. He goes right into it — and He brings more than sympathy.
Christ entered into all the sorrow around Him at the grave. He groaned and was troubled. He saw the power of death over all these poor people. He enters right into it, and it presses upon Him. But He comes into the scene of death in the power of life.
This groan is the last thing John records before the Lord speaks and acts. One writer sums up the chapter in five short phrases.
Death had drawn out a groan in the spirit of Jesus, and again (verse 38) we find the grave doing the same. But now He was about to bring the power of His word into action and display... There are five striking pairs of words in this chapter which would sum up the whole story. They come in verses 4, 5, 17, 35 and 39 — "Jesus heard," "Jesus loved," "Jesus came," "Jesus wept," "Jesus said." The grieving believer today still waits for the fifth to be fulfilled. It will come with that "shout" which will raise the dead and change the living.
- Feeling. The groan is more than sadness. The word carries strong, even indignant feeling at the power of death — with real tenderness beside it.
- Cause. The second groan answers the crowd's unbelief. Their ignorance grieves Him as much as the ravages of death do.
- Silence. He offers no defence of His delay. Where reasoning would only flatter unbelief, He groans and walks on.
- Sealing. A cave and a stone are all human hands can manage with the dead — sealed up and put out of sight.
- Life. He enters the scene of death, feels its whole weight, and comes into it in the power of life. The groan is now; the shout that raises the dead is still ahead.
Jesus says, Take away the stone. Martha, the sister of the dead, says to him, Lord, he stinks already, for he is four days [there].
The Lord stands at a sealed tomb and gives an order that sounds almost ordinary: move the stone. Martha answers with the facts of the grave, raising the question of the whole chapter: does what we can see limit what God will do?
Moving a stone was within reach of the people standing there. What came next was not.
At the tomb He takes His place as the One to command, and to be obeyed. "Take away the stone," was His first word. They took away the stone, in spite of Martha's interruption. There was surely something in His manner and in His word that made those around obey promptly. To move the stone was not difficult. Human power could easily do that. To raise the dead required the exercise of divine power, direct or delegated.
There was also a reason for not moving the stone by miracle.
"Take away the stone." Suppose the Lord had removed it by a miracle. Objectors would then have suggested fraud — that Lazarus had moved it from inside.
Her objection is arithmetic: four days, so decay, so no point. One commentator names what has taken hold of her, and then turns it around.
Poor Martha cannot hide her unbelief — that is to say, the influence that outward circumstances had over her soul. Lazarus had been in the grave four days already! Corruption must have already begun, she says. God allows this, so that there is not the slightest doubt, and so that the proof of Lazarus's real death is given. But the glory of God did not depend on how easy the work was. It showed itself in the impossibility.
Martha wanted the humbling sight of death shut away from others. Another writer sets her instinct against the Lord's.
But if Martha could not rise above the humbling effects of death, which she would shut out from others, Jesus would not hide what was due to God in grace to man. How quickly the word of the Lord is forgotten in the presence of the sad circumstances of human ruin! Faith gives the word heed, and reaps the blessing in due time.
Jesus had raised others from the dead. Set beside those cases, this one leaves no room for doubt.
There was a divine reason, too, for the choice of these cases. Suppose the Lord had raised only the child of the Jewish ruler of the synagogue. Unbelief, in its shameless presumption, might have questioned whether the death was real. It could have said the same about the son of the widow. The case of Lazarus was of another kind. Death had claimed him and held him for four days, so that even his sister exclaimed, "Lord, by this time there will be an odor." But He who stood by the grave had "life in Himself" (John 5:26). He was about to die and rise again, so that He might be Lord both of the dead and the living (Rom. 14:9). Death therefore had no power in His presence — indeed, it could not exist there. And He, stooping to us in grace, has proved it by meeting and overcoming death at every stage of decay and corruption.
Martha never asked the obvious question. What can decay prevent, when the One giving the order is the resurrection and the life?
And what of that? Could the humbling process of decay, even if complete, stand for one moment in the way of Him who is the resurrection and the life? Impossible! Bring Him in, and all is clear and simple; leave Him out, and all is dark, and nothing can be done. Only let the Son of God speak, and death and corruption must vanish like the darkness of night before the beams of the rising sun.
The very detail that closed the case in Martha's mind is what makes the outcome unmistakably God's.
She realises that the body has gone to corruption, adding to the hopelessness of the case in the eyes of nature and reason. But all this weight of death on man, and the natural unbelief of the heart, only adds to the display of the glory of God. When all is utterly hopeless on man's side, God acts for His own glory.
Five short phrases hold the whole chapter. Believers are still waiting on the last.
There are five striking couplets in this chapter that would serve to summarise the whole story. They occur in verses 4, 5, 17, 35, 39 — "Jesus heard," "Jesus loved," "Jesus came," "Jesus wept," "Jesus said." The sorrowing believer today still waits for the fifth. It will come true in that "shout" which will raise the dead, change the living, and catch them all up to be with Him. The other four are valid and effective for us at all times.
- The stone. He asks people to do only what people can do. Raising the dead takes divine power. He left the stone to human hands so that no one could later claim a trick.
- The objection. Martha's words show outward circumstances ruling her soul. The word of the Lord is quickly forgotten in front of a grave.
- The four days. The detail she raises as an obstacle is God's own proof — this was a death nobody could dispute, met at the stage of full decay.
- The impossibility. God's glory did not depend on the work being easy. It showed itself in the impossibility.
- The voice. Decay cannot stand before the Son of God. The same voice that raised Lazarus is the shout still waiting to raise the dead and change the living.
Jesus says to her, Did I not say to thee, that if thou shouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
Jesus stands at a sealed tomb with a body four days dead inside. Martha objects, and He answers her not with an argument but with a reminder. He had already told her this. The verse also sets two verbs in order: believing comes first, seeing follows. So what was Martha going to see?
"Did I not tell you" points back to a word Jesus had already spoken about this sickness. Men were dishonouring Him at that moment, and one writer hears the Father's answer to them here.
That is in connection with verse 4. How interesting and blessed is this answer from the Father to all the dishonour that man was putting on Him! It connects Jesus with the glory of God, so that the Son of God might be glorified by it. What rich reward there always is in waiting for Him! It was a divine thought that the Son of God should be glorified on earth without leaving His place at all. He is still the rejected Jesus, and what comes out? The Son of God glorified.
The glory Jesus promised her was not a vision in the sky. It was power entering the one place where human strength runs out.
Martha's energy comes out here: she was an active, busy person, but full of unbelief. "Lord, by this time there will be an odor… Jesus said to her, Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?" There was His power coming in. What we find here is divine power coming into the place of death. In Christ's own resurrection we find it more blessedly still. They could put the stone there, they could weep over the one they left behind. This power of death had come over all the nature of man. What could they do? Weep over him and leave him there. But what was that? Nothing.
Martha's eyes worked fine. That was the problem — she saw what was in front of her, and nothing more.
It is only the eye of faith that can see the glory of God. Unbelief sees only difficulties, darkness, and death. Faith looks above and beyond all these, and always basks in the blessed beams of the divine glory. Poor Martha saw nothing but a decaying human body. The only reason was the dark, depressing unbelief that held her.
Martha was right about the decay. God had let things reach that stage on purpose.
God allows this, so that no one can have the slightest doubt and the reality of Lazarus's death is proved. But the glory of God did not depend on the work being easy. It showed itself in the impossibility of the work.
Both sisters had said the same thing: had He been there, their brother would not have died. They were right about His presence. But their wish would have cost them something.
Both were right in believing there could be no death in the presence of Jesus. But they both erred, as many more of God's saints do. They assumed it would have been better for them if their sorrow had never come. If the Lord had come, they reasoned, they would not have lost their brother. But if so, they would not have seen the glory of God.
The Lord gave the bystanders a task. But the task and the miracle are not the same thing, and only one of them was theirs.
At the word of the Lord, men could roll the stone from the mouth of the cave. They did this, despite Martha's interfering protest, but their power stopped at that point. The display of the glory of God, which Martha was to see if she believed, was His work alone. Giving life and raising the dead are wholly His work, though He may use men to clear away obstacles.
Martha's unbelief did not cancel the miracle. The stone came away and Lazarus came out. He answered her doubt instead of punishing it.
See how the divine glory displays itself at the grave of Lazarus, even despite the unbelieving suggestion of Martha's heart. For God, blessed be His name, delights at times to rebuke our fears as well as to answer our faith.
- Promise — The Lord holds Martha to His earlier word. That sickness was for the glory of God, so that the Son of God would be glorified by it.
- Sight — Faith is the eye that sees that glory. Unbelief sees only difficulties, darkness and death — and Martha saw only a decaying body.
- Impossibility — God let four days pass so no one could doubt the death. The glory did not rest on an easy work. It shone in an impossible one.
- Order — Men could roll away the stone, and He told them to. Giving life was His work alone.
- Reward — The sisters wished the sorrow away. Without it they would never have seen the glory. The miracle that answered Martha's faith also rebuked her fears.
They took therefore the stone away. And Jesus lifted up his eyes on high and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me;
Willing hands roll the stone back, and the open tomb waits, but before Jesus speaks a single word of power He looks up and thanks His Father. Why does He begin with thanks — and what prayer had the Father already heard?
Human hands did the one thing human hands could do. Everything past that belonged to God alone.
To move the stone was not difficult. Human power could easily do that. To raise the dead required the exercise of divine power, direct or delegated. Who was He who now appeared as the One commanding? All present should hear, and, if they would, understand. It was the Son of the Father. Who on earth had ever spoken to God in heaven like this but Himself?
There was a reason for leaving that job to the onlookers.
"Take away the stone." Suppose the Lord had moved it by a miracle. Objectors would then have hinted at fraud — that Lazarus had done it from inside.
The upward look was His habit. It marks the place He had taken.
Throughout the Gospel of John, the Lord's glory as a divine Person is always kept before us. He is the Son, but always seen in the place He had taken as Man. So He stands on earth and looks up to heaven, as suits the dependent Man. When meeting the needs of the five thousand, "He looked up to heaven." When healing the deaf and mute man, He did so "looking up to heaven." When meeting our sorrows He "lifted up His eyes" to the Father. He never stops being the Son. Yet, having become flesh, He never leaves the place of subjection and dependence that suits Him as Man.
He thanks the Father for hearing Him, yet no one tells us what He asked. One writer asks whether it was the deep groaning of the earlier verses. He also marks the timing: Jesus turned to the Father the moment the stone came away.
It was when the stone was removed that He turned to His Father. His action was to display His glory, and it was to be an act of dependence. Every step of the perfect path, and every action in it, were in dependence on the Father whose glory He always sought. This was an occasion for thanksgiving to the Father. What had the Father heard? Was it the groanings of verses 33 and 38? Groanings that expressed the deep feelings of His spirit in the presence of the ravages of death.
He had the power to raise the dead in Himself. He asks for it anyway, because of the place He had taken.
He was One who could raise the dead. Yet He does it only in service, because He had taken the place of a servant. So He asks for it: "Father, I thank you that you have heard me."
The Father set the hour of His arrival, and the answer came back in the raising itself.
At the graveside, the Son bore testimony to the Father's guidance and His own dependence. He had come to the tomb at the very moment the Father would have Him there. Obediently to the Father's will, He raised Lazarus, and delivered him to his sisters. And by the act of resurrection, the Father glorified the Son in Bethany, having heard His prayer.
His thanks were not a private word. Worship and longing move together in what He says.
Always glorifying the Father in all that He did, Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me." As He gave glory to God, He longed at the same time over the souls of those around Him. He wanted them to receive Him as the One sent from the Father, and they were about to see striking testimony to it.
The thanksgiving comes before the miracle, and it belongs to a pattern in His life.
Four times in our Lord's own life He gave thanks. With five thousand starving men in front of Him, He gave thanks because He knew what He would do. When His testimony was rejected He gave thanks. At the grave of Lazarus He gave thanks, before He raised him. And facing His own death He gave thanks. Scripture says, "give thanks in all circumstances" — but that is not as hard as "giving thanks always and for everything." This is God's will for us.
- Heard. He thanks the Father for a prayer no one wrote down — the groaning at the grave, one writer suggests, carried up before a word of power.
- Dependent. He could raise the dead by His own power, yet He asks, because He had taken the place of a servant.
- Upward. The lifted eyes here match the lifted eyes at the feeding of the five thousand and at the healing of the deaf man: as Man, He looked to heaven.
- Aloud. He prayed where the crowd could hear, so that they might receive Him as the One the Father sent.
- Thankful. Thanks came before the sight of the answer. He did the same at the five thousand, under rejection, at this grave, and facing His own death.
but I knew that thou always hearest me; but on account of the crowd who stand around I have said [it], that they may believe that thou hast sent me.
At the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus speaks out loud to His Father before He speaks to the dead man. Then He says why. He did not need the words Himself. He said them so the crowd could hear.
The Lord is not pleading for power at the grave. He already has it, and He uses it in open communion with His Father.
At the grave He speaks and acts in divine power over death, in communion with the Father. Martha's unbelief only draws out the expression of it. He is the resurrection and the life... And having said this, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.
The way He spoke to heaven was itself the evidence.
All present should hear, and, if they would, understand. It was the Son of the Father. So, lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me..." (41, 42). Whoever on earth had ever spoken to God in heaven like this but Himself?
Commentators differ here. Some read the thanksgiving as a real asking, made from the place of a servant.
He was One who could raise the dead. Yet He does it only in service, because He had taken the place of a servant. So He asks for it: "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me."
Others say it was thanks and not a request. The miracle came from His own word.
The Lord first prayed (vv. 41-42). He was not asking for the resurrection of Lazarus. He prayed in calm, conscious unity with the Father, to show those who stood by that He did nothing apart from the Father's will. The Father heard Him always. He did not plead with Him at all, for He speaks not as the dependent Man in Luke, but as being One with the Father... So it was not prayer that raised Lazarus, but the Lord's own authoritative, divine word.
after-note: restores the point that raises depth
The aim is faith in one fact: the Father sent Him. The two-day delay earlier in the chapter fits the same pattern.
Every movement and act in the life of that blessed Man rested in simple dependence on the Father Himself. When He heard that Lazarus was sick, He waited two days. Natural affection did not move Him. The direction of the Father's will did, so that He might be glorified... The resurrection of Lazarus was the greatest testimony to the Son as the Sent One of the Father.
His timing at the graveside was part of the same obedience:
He had come to the tomb at the very moment the Father would have Him there. In obedience to the Father's will, He raised Lazarus and gave him back to his sisters. And by the act of resurrection, the Father glorified the Son in Bethany, having heard His prayer.
The people standing there did not believe. Yet they are the ones He spoke for.
In view of the crowd gathered there, He thanks the Father for hearing Him, and as One who always hears Him. He points directly to that gathering, standing there in unbelief, who may yet come to believe.
And this care for outsiders is not the Lord's alone.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all interested in the bystander... Our Christian lives must look up. But we are not well developed in our spiritual lives if we do not look out, and become interested in those that stand by.
The certainty behind "always" is peace. And He hands that same peace to us.
In Christ I see a divine heart, reflecting the perfect certainty of a love no one can question. It is peace. Now He says to us, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you." What peace those words express: "I knew that You always hear Me, but I said this on account of the people standing around." And this same peace is ours now; see 1 John 5:14-15.
- Overheard, not needed. The Father always heard Him. He said the words aloud only so the crowd could hear a Son talking to His Father.
- Thanks, then command. He gives thanks first, then calls Lazarus out. Commentators differ on whether He was asking or only giving thanks.
- Sent, not self-sent. The stated purpose is belief in one thing: the Father sent Him. Commentators call the raising of Lazarus the greatest testimony to Him as the Sent One.
- Aimed at unbelief. The crowd stood there in unbelief. Those are the very people He spoke for.
- Look up, then look out. Father, Son and Spirit all care about the bystander. Our own upward life stays undeveloped until it turns outward.
And having said this, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.
At the tomb of a man four days dead, Jesus does not touch, gesture, or plead. He calls one name, and a dead man walks out.
Everything at the tomb worked against that command. One writer lists the obstacles:
He commanded again, crying with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out." The one who was dead came out. He was bound hand and foot with grave clothes, his face wrapped in a cloth. Everything there stood in the way of obeying the command — his limbs tied, his face wrapped up. But the word of command was a word of power. Life returned to the body. Strength and vigour returned to the limbs. But had he really died? Had life really left his body? He had been dead and buried for four days. So the miracle could not be denied. If Lazarus came out of the tomb, it was the Lazarus who had died. His resurrection was beyond dispute.
The same writer notes what is missing here:
There was no personal contact with the Lord, as there had been with the daughter of Jairus. He only spoke, and it was done. He, who called all creation into existence, called Lazarus out from the dead by His word.
Jesus had just spoken to the Father. So did Lazarus rise in answer to that prayer?
With a loud voice He calls, "Lazarus, come out!" So Lazarus did not rise in answer to prayer. He rose at the Lord's own authoritative, divine word. Lazarus came out, even though he was bound hand and foot with grave clothes. His face was covered too. He could not see where he was going. But the power was in the voice that called him — the power of resurrection life.
He did not say only, "Come out." He said, "Lazarus, come out." One writer points out what that name did:
At last He cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out." Others have pointed this out: if our Lord had not said "Lazarus," all the dead would have risen. The name marked out the one who was to be subject to His divine life-giving power.
The same choosing will mark His return:
Others besides Lazarus were dead and lying in their tombs at Bethany. But the Lord only spoke to the one whom He knew and loved. He made a selection among those who were in the grave. And when the Lord comes down from heaven with a shout, only those who know that voice will respond.
Christ did not need the stone moved, the shout, or the bandages. He used them to teach us:
He could have set Lazarus free as easily as He could have made the stone disappear. He could have willed it all without crying with a loud voice. But He wants us to trust the power of His word. So He would have us notice the corruption that comes before He gives life, and the bondage that may follow it now. Liberty is needed as well as life; but it is unnatural that someone who has been made to live should stay bound.
Christ had already claimed to be the resurrection. What happens at this grave reaches far past it:
"I am the resurrection," He had said. He proved it here. What happened to Lazarus is a pledge of that power which will call every sleeping saint from the tomb. It is a pledge, too, of that power which will call all the ungodly dead to appear at the great white throne. Nothing could stop Lazarus obeying the voice of Christ. Nothing will be able to hold the bodies of the ungodly dead in the grave. God's people can find encouragement from this account. When He calls His own from the tomb, every one of them will come out.
Read as a picture, the call and the untying trace what happens to a sinner who hears Christ's word:
A second word He spoke: "Loose him and let him go." Lazarus is a type of a sinner who hears His Word. We are dead in trespasses and sins. Spiritually, man is in the grave, in death and in darkness. He is in corruption. The Lord of Life gives life. And besides this He gives, along with that life, liberty. He sets us free from the bondage of the law and of sin. In the next chapter we read of Lazarus again. He is in fellowship with the Lord who raised him from the dead. Whoever hears and believes receives three blessed things: life, liberty and fellowship.
- Voice. No touch, no hand on the body — the One who called creation into being called Lazarus out by word alone.
- Name. The voice was aimed. Among all the dead at Bethany, "Lazarus" marked out one man to hear it.
- Display. Christ needed no stone moved, no loud cry, no bandages. He used them to teach us to trust the power of His word.
- Pledge. What happened to one man is a sample of what will happen to every sleeping believer, and to the ungodly dead as well.
- Sequence. First life, then liberty, then fellowship — the next chapter shows Lazarus with the Lord who raised him.
And the dead came forth, bound feet and hands with graveclothes, and his face was bound round with a handkerchief. Jesus says to them, Loose him and let him go.
The dead man walks out of the tomb still tied up in his burial cloths. Then the Lord speaks a second time — not to raise him, but to set him free. Two words of Christ, and two different gifts: life, and then liberty. (The writers quote the older wording "Loose him, and let him go." The ESV reads "Unbind him, and let him go.")
Lazarus obeyed a command that no dead man could obey. Linen strips tied his hands and feet, and a cloth covered his face.
With a loud voice He calls, "Lazarus, come out!" So Lazarus was not raised in answer to prayer, but by the Lord's own commanding, divine word. Though his hands and feet were tied with grave clothes, Lazarus came out. His face was covered too (v. 44). He could not see where he was going, but the power was in the voice that called him — the power of resurrection life. The miracle is complete and perfect.
The Lord who could call a man back from death could have removed the wrappings just as easily. One writer explains why He did not.
What was the difficulty of the stone to Him? For Himself He needed to remove nothing. It was for their sakes. Look at man in the disgusting state of death before he was raised! And what did the binding of the grave clothes, or of the cloth over his face, matter to Him now? … He could have freed Lazarus as easily as He could have made the stone vanish. He could have willed it all without crying with a loud voice. But He wants us to trust the power of His word, and so He would have us notice the decay that comes before He gives life, and the bondage that can follow it now. We need liberty as well as life. It is unnatural that anyone made to live should stay bound any longer.
Between the two words of Jesus there is a living man who can do nothing at all. That gap is the point.
There is not only life, but liberty. When Lazarus heard the voice of the Son of God, he came out. Yet his hands and feet were tied with grave clothes, and he could not see, or walk, or move at all. But when the second word reached him, "Loose him and let him go," he gets liberty.
Christ raises the dead; the untying He leaves to the people standing there. One writer reads the wrappings as marks of a religious system that stamps men with death, and hears the command as still in force.
"Loose him and let him go," is now the word that sets him free. The Lord wills that those who have received life from Him should enjoy it in all its blessed freedom, free from the grave clothes of Judaism, which were meant to stamp men with death, and not with life. "Loose him and let him go," is the Lord's word now to the evangelist and to the teacher. … the Son of God is glorified in freedom, not in bondage.
Set this tomb beside the empty tomb of Jesus. The burial cloths tell two opposite stories.
When Lazarus came out of his tomb at the command of the Lord, his hands and feet were tied with grave clothes. They were evidence that he would have to return to that grave again, and he needed friendly hands to loose him and let him go. But the sacred body of Jesus did not need such friendly service. It did not rise from the dead wrapped in the clothes of death. He left them behind Him, undisturbed by His rising.
Because Lazarus walked out in flesh and blood, writers hold that this scene is not chiefly a picture of the believer's future body.
Strictly speaking, it was not a pledge to the saints that they would rise in glorious bodies, for Lazarus came out bound hand and foot with grave clothes, to walk again in flesh and blood. It was instead a pledge to Israel of the life-giving power of the Son of God on their behalf. It showed them that the promised resurrection, or revival, of the nation rested on Him, and that He would bring it about at the right time.
- Voice. Tied hand and foot, with a cloth over his face, Lazarus still came out. The power was not in his legs but in the voice that called him.
- Life. Only the Son of God gives it. He gave it here by His own commanding word, not in answer to prayer.
- Liberty. A living man can still be tied up. The second word, not the first, let him see, walk and move.
- Hands. Christ raised him; others untied him. That command still reaches the evangelist and the teacher, because the Son of God is glorified in freedom, not in bondage.
- Limit. Lazarus kept his grave clothes, proof he would need that grave again. Christ left His behind. One man was restored to life; the other rose as Victor.